Quote from Cowcaine
people who havnt played d2 for years but hopped on d3 this year will never understand the difference between these 2 games. d2 was addicting like crack, leveling from 1 to around 85 was just a huge journey. The item hunt, sets and runewords just made the game that much more better. And since the skill tree isnt the same anymore i dont see ANY reason at all to make duplicate classes anymore. I used to love having a fire sorc, java zon, bow zon, ice sorc, zeal pally, hammer pally.....there's just too many thing in d2 that kept you going...d3 is pre school on training wheels.
Anyone who actually played D2 for any length of time knows that D2 is facerolling easy.
D3 has FAR more complex combat, and FAR more challenge then D2 ever did.
And I have played D2 since day 1, the only game that made me stop playing D2 was D3.
Str to equip, Dex to hit, everything else to Vit is hardly complex, picking your 2-3 skills to spam endlessly and stacking those skills synergies is hardly complex.
Diablo 2 was brilliant for its time, but D3 has FAR more complexity then D2 ever did. The stats in D3 actually DO SOMETHING, Dex can be a valuble stat on a Barb, Str can be a valuble stat on a WD, etc.
All they need to do is pull the focus from mega damage in Inferno (already being done) and buff some of the lesser used skills (already confirmed for the patch after 1.0.3) and there will be easily 10x the build diversity in D3 then D2 could ever hope to have.
And Runewords? Yeah, its not like you had to wait 2 years and pay for an expansion pack to get those or anything.......
OH WAIT, you did.
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The wizard is slightly different, melee attacks and spells act differently. Casting Magic Missile does not provide as satisfying a feedback compared to Bard/DH. But when you find the wizard spells that work for you, you'll be happy. I easy got over this feeling when I found a good DPS weapon and when I started getting runes for my Magic Missile. The Split rune makes MM feel very good. Also the more spells you unlock for the wizard, the better. You feel very very satisfied with how Electrocute works.
Please don't start this argument again Antirepublican. You have your views. Fine. Stop trying to cram it down everyone's throats. Especially since you're completely closed to any input from anyone else.
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This was a question on many people's minds way back in 2000 with Diablo2. Battle.net was so new and everyone was wondering would a company really allow us to play on their servers for free?
Here we are 12 years later, Diablo 2 servers are still up and running. Battle.net has been improved upon and much expanded with Starcraft.
Many other companies have also done similar things, Guild Wars comes to mind, pay once and its free after that, all on their servers. with no extra cost. There are many free to play games now out there as well and doing very very well, and actual numbers show that most of these games only require 2-3% of their playing population to pay to remain profitable.
Blizzard game (since Warcraft 2) have always sold extremely well years after their release. Diablo 2 was in the top 20-30 PC games sold for over 9 years, right now it's still in the top 100 PC Games being sold. Not to mention D3's auction house is there to pay for server maintenance and I have NO doubt that it will generate more than enough revenue for this purpose just due to sheer numbers.
Bottomline, you don't have a guarantee. But this is a model that Blizzard Pioneered back in 2000, and since then it has become a legitimate business model. Also in terms of deep pockets and track record, no other game company can beat Blizzard. It WILL remain free for at least 5 years after launch (unless for some crazy reason D3 does not sell at least 1 million units day 1). But more realistically, 10 years easy especially since we are expecting a min of 2 expansions for this game.
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I don't think the current Skill UI is good. But I do agree that calling people a fanboy is a sign that you're very immature.
They might not have seen or experienced the previous system which was slick. Or they might truly prefer this system because it makes sense to them.
Just because people have differing opinions from your own does not make you right. Grow up.
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I totally disagree. Blizzard is one of the only Game Companies where I can depend on to deliver a solid game and most times very very addicting. Take Starcraft 2, it has been forever since I bought a strategy game. Most either lack innovation or are just too complex for non stratefy gamers to get into. Starcraft 2 comes along and I loved it! Although I played through the campaign and
never touched it after that (cos I'm not a PvP or strategy fan) it was an awesome game experience.
I want D3 (And every game Blizzard produces) to have that same blizzard magic. This means their developing method of reiterating game play elements and discarding them even at late stages should be continued. Sure we have to wait but... we KNOW it will be awesome. Unlike other developers where its a hit or miss.
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I'll preface this by saying that I only just got into the beta last Tuesday although I was aware of the various changes to the patches to beta, this is the first time I've gotten my hands of the game. I completed the beta on all 5 classes and got about level 7-9 without grinding when I fought Leroic. Here are some of my thoughts, and note that these are my opinions only and may not coincide with yours.
Demon hunter
I played this class first because of all the not so stella feedback I had heard (this was pre Hatred Generation). I Loved the demon hunter. Everytime she fires off her hand crossbows using some skills there's a "gunshot" sound and it almost feels like holding the Xbox vibrating controller, you feel the impact every time you fire which is almost always. The Barbarian does this too.
I loved the playstyle, and the skills Hungering Arrow and Evasive Fire are amazing, especially Hungering Arrow with its Pierce ability which will actually hit the next closest target, not like Pierce in D2 which only travelled in a straight line. The Hatred Spenders are also amazing, "Rapid Fire" acts like a machine gun and is excellent for Champions and Elites.
I'll admit that until you get a good high damage hand crossbow, the demon hunter is going to feel weak. But once your dps get's up there, there's no stopping her. Not too impressed with the Discipline skills yet, it drains too fast and in normal Act 1 I didn't see much of a need for it.
Over all very happy with this class. And will probably be my top 2 picks.
Witch Doctor
This was another good class. Although I'm not sure why you would pick the Physical realm skills over the Spirit realm due to the difference in mana costs. I do remember Haunt in a previous version being limited to 3 castings at a time? But in this current build, you can Spam Haunt and it will do significant damage and is only 1/2 the cost of Poison dart. Zombie dogs are also awesome, and with the number of health globes, they almost never die. (Of course this is only Normal Act 1)
With Grasp of the Dead, Haunt, Zombie Dogs, you don't need much more. I never ran out of mana except when I used Firebats which is probably a lot more useful later on. And Plague of Toads is awesome, but because of the higher mana requirements, I'd stick with Haunt for lower levels.
Barbarian
I am not a melee person, but even I have to admit there's something awesome about wading into loads of monsters and smashing them. Cleave, Hammer of the Ancents, Ground Stomp were my 3 skills of choice. This was the only class where I did pop a health potion when fighting the Skeleton King. Also, there's a barbarian specific item property which gives you life back when you do damage, very very useful.
As I mentioned, the barbarian and Demon Hunter are the only 2 classes where each attack feels ... solid, as if you're getting feedback from a console controller. It really helps make the class feel special and real.
Overall very impressed and surprized with the barbarian, I actually found a melee class I like and will probably play.
Monk
I'm on the fence with the monk. Don't get me wrong, its a fun class, but compared to the other 4 classes, I'm not sure how well it holds up (then again it could be a personal playstyle issue).
The spirit generator skills are awesome and amazing. I was less impressed with the spirit spender skills or the mantras. I do admit that I need more time with this class, getting a twinked character to the Skeleton King is not hard at all so I mostly used Deadly Reach, Crippling Wave and lashing Tail Kick.
Unlike the other classes, the Monk feels like he's got more defensive/utility skills which are not required in Act 1. So only time will tell.
Wizard
Ahh the wizard. I have alway and will always be a wizard at heart. I also love the magic missile spell. So its with reluctance that I admit that until you reach level 6 and get Arcane Orb, Magic Missile does not hold up to the other class starting skills. Its just a little lackluster. It kills just fine, but in terms of making you feel all powerful and awesome... not really.
However, once you get skills like Electrify and Arcane Orb, say hello to an awesome awesome class. I will also say that of all the 1-H weapons I used, the highest dps I found was Wand + Orb. For some reason the + dmg with Orb really really helps and the 1.4 weapon speed for wands is great.
Weapon Speed
I was very skeptial about weapon speeds. I saw numbers like 1.2 / 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.46. It seemed really minor. But in gameplay, there is a noticible difference for classes like the Wizard. I spam casted Magic Missile using a 1.2 high dps weapon vs a 1.4 Wand. Talk about noticiple difference. Trust me, as depending on the spells you pick, weapons speed matters and spells like magic missle will defintely require a Wand/Orb vs a slow high dps 2 handed weapon.
Co-op
After completing the Skeleton King on all 5 character, I joined co-op games. I love it. Obviously everyone in beta tends to favor running only the final Lich Kind quest. And it really works, its fun and its fast. Even if 1 character get's to the King first, there's a check for all players in the game to start doing the lich king event. This basically means, no one is going to miss killing a boss just cos he's slow or sightseeing.
The only down side? Lag. Lag. Lag. I had a witch doctor with his hounds, a Sorceress using disintegrate, a Demon Hunter and myself. all 4 persons in the same screen, all spamming their highest powered skills ... we're talking huge lags. Still playable, it was not quite a slide show but definately noticible. I'm hoping it is because this is a beta and their servers/infrastructure are not all setup yet.
In D2, I was a loner. I hated multiplayer cos of kill steals, constant message spams, and sudden duels. I'm very happy to say, co-op was a dream in D3. You'll probabaly want to do the initial run thru solo but after that, co-op really is fun.
Crafting
For anyone who thinks Crafting is a joke like it is in most other games, prepare to be amazed. Crafting gave the most powerful weapons and armor. You WILL be doing crafting and it WILL benefit you. For example, the Demon Hunter while fun was taking way too long to kill foes. So I hopped on other characters, finally got the ability to craft Apprentice hand Crossbows and viola! 2 hand crossbows that had over 10.4 dps.
Drop Rates of Pages of Turning
I would not worry about it. On my first character I dispaired of ever finding 5 to turn into a book. By my 4th character I had almost leveled the blacksmith 5 times. It might be a little much now, but remember you'll also unlock the Jeweler and Mystic in the full game.
Gold
I have no issues with gold drops right now. In fact in normal I think the drop rate for gold is just fine. After completing all 5 classes I expanded my stash 4 times, and trained my Blacksmith 5 times, crafted quite a few weapons/armor for all my classes. I was wanting more money, the next stash tab is 10k and I had run out of crafting materials and only had 1kg left.
Overall
This game is as good as I think we all expect it to be. The only reason I'm not playing the game 24/7 is cos also got into SWTOR beta and I don't want to burn out on D3 beta just yet. Hope this was helpful to someone.
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Uhhh... MAJORITY of serious gamers? Sorry but there are a lot of gamers, serious gamers who don't use mods or prefer to use as few mods as possible partially be its too much trouble or we prefer to play the game as developers intended.
If you are able to mod D3 without the developers putting in any tools or effort to make data readable to you. I say go for it, more power to you. But in no way should they spend any time or effort supporting modders because it has no direct benefit for them and its not their vision of the game.
And if after you make the mod and intend to share it with others, just know you run the risk of being sued, and/or having your battlenet account terminated because of cheating. If you're ok with that, more power to you and your mods.
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Look, level 1-3 runes are for experimenting. Almost everyone agrees with this, meaning we can swap the runes in and out as we find them, regardless of rune levels and regardless of which skill you've slotted them into. The only question in this regard is:
1- Are all runes unattuned before you slot them?
2- When replacing an already slotted/attuned rune, is the rune destroyed?
3- When replacing an already slotted/attuned rune, is the rune attuned to the specific skill?
4- If runes are attuned to specific skills, is there a way to make them unattuned again
You're the only one who seems to think that once attuned, you can never change the rune placed in the slot. By that logic, we will not slot any runes until we get level 7 runes. Also if a rune is attuned to a specific skill, (Eg. Level 3 Indigo Magic Missile) you can place it on the AH, and any wizard can buy that rune and slot it into his Magic Missile skill. Again everyone who doesn't live in your world seems to agree that is how this would work if runes attuned to a specific skill.
One last point, it was 2 gems that were not displayed on the Diablo 3 website. It makes a huge difference that it was GEMS and not RUNES. Obviously you can't grasp how much difference that makes meaning you have no clue about D3.
And it has not been confirmed that they (the 2 gems) are removed! Jay already said what is on the site is not what will be available on release, he has confirmed many more uniques and other items that are still being worked on and are not ready as yet. Chances are they are still finalizing what attributes those 2 Gems should be for.
PS. How is Randomlization not Gambling?
You roll a dice, there is a one in six chance of each number coming out. That's Randomlization (probability theory), that's math. On a infinite number of rolls each number will appear the same amount of times.
In craps you rolls 2 dice and hope for a 7 or 11. That's Randomlization (probability theory), that's math and interestinly it is called gambling. Why do you think mathematicians always use Gambling as an example when trying to explain probability theory.
In Diablo, killing a boss nets you a probable chance of getting a rare/unique. That's randomlization/gambling. Collecting + Magic Find is all about stacking the odds more in your favor.
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Oh and having Evocation for only 1 spell that has a cooldown, plus having 3 different ray spells in one build? (I consider Arcane Torrent a Ray in theory). WOW. You have to stand in place a lot to cast don't you. Hope you don't run into several enhanced speed + cold based elites. Cos you don't even have a teleport to get out of trouble, and NO AP REGEN!!!
Short sighted build that only relies on brute force power with no imagination IMO and no AP regen abilities.
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In my mind, if Magic Weapon does not apply to Spectral Blade, would ANY mage except those who want to prove a point ever use this spell? It would be completely useless if it did not apply to Spectral Blade. You could find the most damaging sword in the game, and you're going to use that as your base attack when you have 4 signature spells that cost 0AP do good damage and would even return AP and more if runed properly?
And if assuming Indigo rune on magic weapon is the only rune that carries over to Spectral blade, while the other 4 runes will only affect a true melee attack, the genius designer who thought that one up needs to be "praised".
The concept of every skill being improved by 5 runes with potentially different effects is already confusing/daunting to a casual gamer who is not as big of diablo fans as we are. Now we're going to have a skill where one rune affects a spell that looks designed for it, while 4 will not? Yep, genius.